Executive summary
- Russia’s war in Ukraine has reversed earlier military reforms, returning to a Soviet-style model reliant on mass mobilisation and centralised command.
- The army’s reliance on quantity over quality stems from both strategic misjudgements and institutional inertia, with contract soldiers and conscripts replacing professional forces.
- Shortfalls in industrial capacity have pushed the military to reactivate decades-old equipment and adopt planned-economy approaches to defence production.
- Long-term challenges include a shrinking conscript pool, outdated officer training, and a political system averse to decentralised command structures.
- The Kremlin may attempt a limited operation in the coming years to exploit current manpower advantages and NATO uncertainty, aiming to secure strategic gains before its reserves degrade.
Until recently it was taken as a given that the experience of actual combat inevitably helps a country’s armed forces to develop and modernise in order to become more efficient. Paradoxically, however, the experience which the Russian army has gained from its war in Ukraine has led it to do no more than ‘modify’; it has not ‘modernised’; and it has certainly not carried out any ‘military reform’. Indeed, as a result of this ‘modification’ the Kremlin appears to have turned away from all of the achievements brought about by the military reform of 2008–2012 and reverted to what is clearly a Soviet model for running the armed forces (albeit in a modified form). In the long term this could lead to the reshaping of the economy and society, too.
An unpredictable war
It is worth pointing out that there are two interrelated reasons which have led to fundamental changes in the way the Russian armed forces are organised and how military operations have been conducted. The first of these is that combat operations which have been carried out in Ukraine over the past three years are significantly different from the ‘future war’ scenario which was envisaged in the wake of the American wars against Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Those wars were a triumph for the revolution in military affairs, and from the start showed the advantage that high quality military technology gave one side over the other. Decisive operations led to the defeat of the enemy in rapid time. The US’s total technological dominance meant that the size of the opposing forces and the amount of equipment they held was a secondary factor. In the case of the war against Iraq in 2003, US forces were a quarter of the size of the Iraqi forces, yet this had no influence on the outcome of the operation.
The war in Ukraine, though, is between two armies which are roughly on the same technological level. The achievements of the revolution in military affairs – the mass use of pilotless drones (air and sea drones), the means for carrying out electronic warfare, and also the limited use of precision-guided weapons – have led to a strategic stalemate. Neither side has the ability secretly to build up any kind of sizeable force to carry out a major operation. Units designated for specific military operations find themselves under attack from unmanned drones and enemy artillery when moving up to the front line and are unable even to reach the line of deployment. The whole rear service infrastructure, especially weapon and fuel depots, is exceedingly vulnerable. Such depots now have to be situated up to 100 km behind the lines of troop deployment. All of this has made it very difficult to carry out operations involving large numbers of troops.
It is worth adding, too, that because of the peculiarities of the internal political situation and the state of military industry on both sides, neither is capable at the moment (or, indeed, in the near future) of building up the kind of strategic reserve which would be essential to achieve a decisive victory. As a result, territorially the fighting has become protracted, similar to military operations in the First World War or the second stage of the Korean War. For such intensive military operations, this means that it is not the level of preparedness of the troops or the quality of the weaponry which is of primary importance, but simply the amount of personnel and military equipment.
Quantity versus quality
Achieving success on the battlefield with greater numbers has become the second reason why the Russian army has had to modify its practices. At the start of its military operation against Ukraine, the Russian army had insufficient manpower. This was a result of the armed forces’ reform of 2008 to 2012, which was carried out by the then Minister of Defence, Anatoly Serdyukov. The essence of the reform was the rejection of the idea of mass mobilisation.
Over the course of more than 300 years since Russia created its first regular army, the ability to carry out mass mobilisation of the population became the basis on which the country could win any war in which it was involved. (This was done in various ways. Up until 1874 it was through recruitment; in 1874, compulsory military service was brought in.) This mass mobilisation would give Russia numerical superiority over any enemy. Accordingly, the concept of mass mobilisation became the foundation for the planning and organisation of the way the armed forces were run.
This reached its height in the USSR, when a five-million-strong peacetime army was a huge military school in which millions of reservists were prepared who could then be called up in an emergency. Military units were comprised of conscript soldiers, with hardly any professional sergeants. The combat readiness of these units depended less on their level of training than on their level of staffing. The majority of these units and sub-units were not at full strength. As a result, it would have been impossible to carry out any strategic operation without a prior ‘mobilisation’: this would involve a call-up of reservists; deploying them to bring incomplete units up to strength; and readying weaponry and equipment which was in store.
Even in peacetime, all of the country’s industry, civilian or military, either had to produce or be ready to produce equipment for the military. Such an army could be effective only if the whole economy worked for it, and if the entire male population were regarded as ‘a resource to be mobilised’ and, in theory, able to be called up at a moment’s notice. It goes without saying that such a system could operate only in a totalitarian state.
In the 1990s and at the start of the 2000s, Russia had a market economy (albeit a very unusual one); and certain rights and freedoms had been introduced, as well as the idea of the rule of law. Yet the General Staff’s attempts to maintain the Soviet military system resulted in decay and a structural crisis, which affected all the basic principles underlying the formation of the Russian army. The combat readiness of the Russian armed forces was horrifyingly low, as two wars in Chechnya demonstrated.
Vladimir Putin understood this very well. Recalling that time in a speech to the Federal Assembly in 2006, the president stated, ‘In order to give an effective response to the terrorists, we would have had to put together a force at least 65,000 strong. Yet in the whole of the ground forces there were only 55,000 soldiers in combat ready units, and they were spread across the whole country. There were 1.4 million soldiers in the army, but no one had been trained to fight. That’s why inexperienced lads were sent into a hail of bullets.’
Serdyukov’s reforms
It was only after the war with Georgia in 2008 that the Russian military-political leadership acknowledged that despite the constant increase in funding for the armed forces since Putin had become president, they remained ineffective. The idea of ordering a mobilisation was unrealistic in post-Soviet Russia. A significant number of tanks and armoured personnel carriers which had been put into storage were faulty. Officers who had spent their whole careers serving in under-staffed ‘skeleton’ units to which reservists were sent refused to take charge of fighting units. The Kremlin got the message: if they were to come up against an enemy which was even just a little stronger, this could end in defeat.
Anatoly Serdyukov was appointed Minister of Defence in 2007 and put in motion a radical military reform. The reformers’ aim was to create a different type of army, with fully staffed units. Bearing in mind the demographic situation, this could be accomplished only by significantly reducing the number of units in the armed forces. The ground forces alone became eleven times smaller.
As a result of Serdyukov’s reforms, the Kremlin now had at its disposal a few dozen fully equipped units, which meant that a military command could be carried out within a few hours of it being issued. Putin had long been concerned at his inability to deploy a military force and immediately used these units to achieve his geopolitical goals. In February 2014, Russian forces sealed off the local parliament in Crimea, cut all transport links which joined the peninsula to Ukraine, and surrounded the Ukrainian military bases there; all of which allowed them to seize Crimea with no loss of life and unite it with Russia.
Even more impressive was the rapid deployment of Russian troops to the Russo-Ukrainian border at the end of February 2014. In 1999 it had taken the General Staff more than two weeks to put together two battalions of paratroopers and dispatch them to Dagestan, where Chechen fighters had broken through. Fifteen years later, in just a day and a half 40,000 soldiers could be stationed on the border with Ukraine.
The switch to mobilisation
However, the Kremlin misinterpreted these successes. They decided that this reformed army, which had been created to ensure victory in a brief, local conflict, was capable of fulfilling any task, including an attack on Ukraine. This error became clear in February 2022, when Putin set the army the impossible task of seizing this large European country. He simply did not have sufficient forces. What was more, the reforms, which had been interrupted when they had been only half-completed, had not been thought through and carried out at the strategic level. In military colleges and academies, they were continuing to teach a doctrine based on a mass mobilised army which no longer existed. Russian officers were incapable of conducting a war in the way that they had been taught. In the first instance, this accounts for the defeats suffered by the Russian army in 2022.
It is likely that after the painful defeats near Kharkiv and in Kherson Region, Putin turned to his generals for advice. And they recommended a return to the only model they knew for running the armed forces and carrying out military operations. All they could recommend to Putin was to adopt mass mobilisation once again. This was what happened in the autumn of 2022, when a so-called ‘limited mobilisation’ was declared, which resulted in 300,000 recruits being sent to the armed forces. At the same time, Yevgeny Prigozhin, an entrepreneur with a criminal background, was given permission to recruit prisoners, which produced a further 50,000 soldiers. These measures allowed the high command to stabilise the situation on the frontline at the start of 2023. But the Kremlin was shaken by the strongly negative reaction to this mobilisation throughout society, which led to hundreds of thousands of young people fleeing the country.
But with the military operation bogged down and reinforcements being constantly needed because of the huge losses of personnel, the Kremlin had to create a type of mobilisation which would not lead to protests in society. They turned to ‘market forces’ to solve the recruitment issue. The Kremlin was going back to something that imperial Russia had done during the First World War. It began to pay those who took part in military actions sums of money which were enormous by Russian standards. At over $2,000 per month, this is much higher than normal wages.
In addition, significant responsibility for carrying out the mobilisation was put on the shoulders of local authorities, which also started to pay out large amounts of money – over $40,000 – for signing an initial contract with the armed forces. This led to a steady increase in personnel for the army, of around 30,000 per month. According to official figures, 540,000 people signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence in 2023, and a further 427,000 in 2024. The Kremlin is managing to maintain some 700,000 soldiers engaged in the fighting, which gives the Russian military command more than twice the advantage in numbers on the ground. Thanks to this advantage the Russian army has seized the strategic initiative, and is continuing to attack, even though it is making very slow progress.
The return to the concept of mass mobilisation, combined with the altered character of military operations led to the rebirth of Soviet methods of military training, albeit in a somewhat different format. The constant flow of personnel allowed for dead or wounded soldiers to be replaced by new recruits, without withdrawing whole units from the frontline for rest and reorganisation. Nine reserve regiments have been formed to support the fighting units, and some 300,000 soldiers have been trained in them. In this context, it is worth noting the words of Colonel-General Ivan Buvaltsev, Head of the Main Training Directorate of the Armed Forces, who said, ‘Combat training has now mainly moved to the level of “squad to platoon to company”’. The training of recruits is limited now to individual training and acting in small tactical groups: pairs, trios or groups of five. After two to three weeks of such basic training, these units are being sent into action.
As far as we can tell, the Russian high command has managed to solve the problem of replacing junior officers. The closest estimates suggest that over the course of the three years of the war, losses of officers amount to around 40–50,000. About 13,000 lieutenants graduate from Russian military colleges each year. The gap that this has left means that lieutenants are being replaced by privates and sergeants who have excelled on the battlefield being put through short, intensive courses to become officers. This practice was followed in the Second World War. Not surprisingly, this leaves something to be desired. But in a situation where combat involves small units, such lieutenants probably have sufficient skills and knowledge.
Tanks brought out of storage
The most important problem now is providing troops with weaponry and military technology. This, too, is being tackled by employing the Soviet method of mobilisation. When preparing for a protracted conventional war against NATO, the leadership of the USSR understood that Western industry was much more efficient than its Soviet counterpart and could produce significantly more equipment in a time of war. The answer was to produce as much weaponry as possible in peacetime. This was why in the 1980s the Soviet Union had 63,900 tanks, 66,880 artillery pieces and mortars, 76,520 infantry fighting vehicles (BMPs) and armoured vehicles (BTRs), 12,200 military aircraft and helicopters, and 435 naval vessels. The USSR had as many tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and armoured vehicles as the rest of the world put together; and three times as many as in the USA’s arsenal.
Thirty years after the collapse of the USSR, some of these vast quantities of weaponry were still held in reserve. At the start of 2022, more than 5,000 tanks, 4,000 BMPs, 6,000 BTRs and over 11,000 artillery pieces were still in storage. According to British intelligence, in the course of the first two years of the war the Russian army lost 2,600 tanks and 4,900 other pieces of military equipment. Russian military industry nowadays has neither the capacity nor the speed of production to cover these losses. Instead, they have begun to bring up to operational capacity tanks and weapons which were produced 40 to 50 years ago. It is indicative that at the start of 2025 there were 2,900 tanks, 2,700 BTRs and 3,000 BMPs left in storage. In other words, losses of equipment on the battlefield are basically being covered by what is left in storage.
The future of the Russian army
Turning back to Soviet concepts and models of mobilisation has allowed Putin to create a relatively sustainable system for running the armed forces and conducting military operations. At the current level of intensity, the Kremlin should be able to continue the war for a further two years until the reserves of Soviet weaponry are exhausted. However, the fighting may cease before this for political, rather than military reasons.
In this case, the most important question becomes, what kind of concept will the Russian leadership choose for the future development of the armed forces? The leadership’s representatives have on more than one occasion spoken of the need to make wide-ranging preparations for a military conflict against NATO forces; a conflict which could happen even in the current decade.
Looked at rationally, Russian military planning has no choice but to take account of the fact that the army can no longer rely on the two points which gave it an advantage in the war in Ukraine: the greater numbers of personnel, and the old military equipment Russia had in store. However military planners look at it, the production of new types of weapons, particularly drones, demands an advanced combat control system.
In the same way, the demographic chasm into which Russia is unavoidably falling means that the 40-year old soldiers who are serving on contracts and who today form the backbone of the armed forces will retire, and there are significantly fewer people in the next generation. In these circumstances it is clear that, just as in 2008, the military leadership will once again be faced with the problem of how to improve the quality of training of personnel.
It will be virtually impossible to solve this problem if the current political regime remains in place. Switching to a Western model of running the armed forces, with relatively small numbers of personnel and high levels of technology would inevitably mean going back to Serdyukov’s method for running the armed forces. Specifically, this would mean a return to a brigade structure for the army, turning away from the divisional structure, and also not having understaffed units. The demand to create an effective combat control system would mean considering the idea of network-centric warfare. In its turn, this raises a question which is impossible for the current regime to solve: that of allowing junior commanders to take independent decisions depending on the situation on the battlefield, rather than being afraid of being punished if they do not adhere strictly to orders given earlier.
From this point of view, integrating ‘drone troops’ into the combat control system presents a huge problem, even though such an arm of the armed forces is supposed to be introduced in 2025. At any given moment, the situation on the battlefield is bound to differ from what it was at the time that the higher command gave their orders. A return to such a system will inevitably lead to a contradiction between the armed forces’ principal task of being able to carry out a lengthy conventional war in order to seize a particular piece of territory, and the fundamental ideological principles of the regime, which are based on the militarisation of the state and which take over every aspect of the life of the country.
It is likely that the General Staff will not choose such a rational approach just to protect itself, as it did at the start of 2022, when it was considered better to agree to the very risky move made by the Kremlin and the FSB, which maintained that Ukrainians would not resist an invasion. In such a scenario, the military leadership will try to convince Putin that a future conflict with NATO would be similar to the war in Ukraine. The main argument which they would put forward would be to repeat the Soviet concept of a lengthy conventional war, fundamentally because they would reckon that the West would not be able to tolerate massive casualties. And as in Soviet times, the generals would try to convince the man in the Kremlin that pressure from their own people would force the leaders of NATO countries to sue for a swift peace, on terms which would be favourable to the Kremlin.
A return to the USSR
If it is decided that the Russo-Ukrainian war serves as a model for future wars, this will lead to a further return to the Soviet way of organising the armed forces; namely, maintaining as large an army as possible in peacetime. According to the proposals put forward in December 2022 by the then Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, this would mean the creation of the following new units: three new motorised-rifle divisions and two airborne assault divisions, and an army corps. Seven motorised-rifle brigades and five brigades of naval infantry should be reorganised into a division. It is proposed that a mixed aviation division and also a brigade of army aviation amounting to 80 to 100 helicopters be created for each of the nine combined-arms armies and one tank army. On top of this, eight bomber aviation regiments would be formed, as well as one fighter aviation regiment and six brigades of army aviation. Finally, an artillery division should be created in each military district, each with an artillery brigade ‘of massive force’.
In accordance with Putin’s decree, the General Staff will try to bring the actual manpower up to 1.5 million. If this is the case, then the majority of those currently fighting in Ukraine will not be demobilised. They will be tasked with creating and guarding the new border in the captured territories. Another priority will be to provide a full component of troops for the Leningrad Military District, which was created in 2024.
It is likely that the requirements will be tightened for those who wish to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defence, taking into account age, health, education and essential skills; and that the financial reward will be somewhat reduced. In order to widen the resources for a mobilisation, the General Staff will attempt to increase the number of conscript soldiers. To achieve this, the rules for conscription have been made stricter, and a unified digital register has been created of all those eligible to be called up. The authorities have openly stated that this has been done first and foremost so there will be effective mobilisation in the event of any future wide-ranging war.
Preparation for such a war will have to be accompanied by an overhaul of military industry, which as things stand would be incapable of fulfilling the demands of a mass-mobilised army. With the exception of a few high-tech areas, such as drones, electronic warfare means, long-distance precision weapons, military satellites and nuclear weapons, military industry will focus on the mass production of simple, cheap weaponry. Given the industry’s low productivity, an increase in production can be achieved by increasing the number of factories making military equipment. Bearing in mind the huge costs involved in building new factories, it can be assumed that – following Soviet practice – ‘mobilisation tasks’ will be given in the main to enterprises that are currently producing goods for the civilian market. This is in direct contradiction to the laws of the market economy and, as a result, will lead to the return of the planned economy. Ultimately, this will mean renationalisation, which in practice has already begun. What is not clear, though, is how sustainable this model of USSR 2.0 will prove to be.
When a conflict might happen
If the Soviet mobilisation model is followed, the country would be ready to conduct a new military conflict only after the losses of military equipment had been replaced and essential reserves of such equipment had been put in place. There would also need to be a significant replacement of personnel and the creation of a reliable reserve which could be called up. As mentioned above, military industry is limited in its capabilities. For example, it can produce around 300 new tanks each year. It would take four to five years to create sufficient reserves to wage a war lasting a year. Roughly the same amount of time would be needed in order to build up the essential reserve of manpower, if 300–350,000 conscripts were to receive military training over the course of a year.
It should also be borne in mind that while in the 1970s and 1980s the Soviet leadership wanted to avoid a direct military confrontation with NATO, the same cannot be said about Putin’s regime. Some sort of risky move cannot be excluded, such as a local operation to seize Narva (in Estonia, on the border with Russia), or the Suwałki Gap (the 65 km long stretch of land on the border between Poland and Lithuania, which represents the shortest distance between Belarus and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad). This could successfully push NATO into an internal conflict and help Russian domination over Eastern Europe. Two factors could encourage the Kremlin to make such a move.
Firstly, Russia now has around 700,000 soldiers under arms who have combat experience. A significant number of these soldiers who are already over 45 years of age will be demobilised over the course of the next five years. Putin may be tempted to make use of these experienced soldiers in the near future.
Secondly, NATO’s European members have nothing like this number of military personnel. All of NATO’s plans have been built on US forces being sent across the Atlantic Ocean in case of a crisis. With the political changes that have taken place in the United States, it is by no means certain that this would happen. The Kremlin has reason to believe that any aggressive actions on Russia’s part would cause political discussions within NATO. And while such discussions were taking place, the military operation could be over and the world would be presented with a fait accompli.
Political recommendations
- It is imperative that NATO’s European members recognise that a militaristic regime has long been established in Russia, and its continued existence relies on either preparation for war or conducting a war. This new Cold War is going to last a long time.
- As well as the increase in military production that is already underway, specifically European structures must be created either within NATO or in some other format, which will be capable of conducting military operations should the United States refuse to take part.
- Should this be the case, it is inevitable that the exceedingly difficult decision must be taken for European armies once again to be organised on the basis of conscription.
Appendix. A note on Russian military terminology
Organisation
At the lowest level of military organisation, the Russian army has the platoon (vzvod) and then the company (rota). However, higher up the chain the situation is not as clear-cut as in the British or American armies (where companies are grouped together into regiments), despite the use of similar terminology. Russian battalions (batal’on) are grouped together into regiments (polk); the number and type of battalions depends on whether it is a tank regiment or a motorised-rifle (i.e. motorised infantry) regiment. The regiment will have support from other arms, such as artillery, air defence, signals, engineers etc.
Regiments can be grouped into divisions (diviziya), or upgraded to brigade (brigada) status, with the addition of other components. The next level up is army (armiya). ‘Corps’ (korpus) is another high level formation, though less common in the post-Soviet army. All forces based in one area are included in the military district; these are based on geography. There are currently five military districts: Leningrad, Moscow, Central, Eastern, and Southern.
Ranks
The basic rank in the Russian army, especially for conscripts, is the private (ryadovoy). Those regarded as more capable, or many of those who have signed a contract, may have longer basic training and become sergeants (serzhant). The equivalent of the British non-commissioned officer is the starshina or praporshchik (two levels).
Russian officers graduate from military college as lieutenants (leytenant; there are three levels). Above this, ranks virtually reflect British ranks: captain (kapitan); major (maiyor); lieutenant-colonel (podpolkovnik); colonel (polkovnik). There are then four ranks of general, which are not quite equivalent to British ranks. A general-maiyor equates to a brigadier; general-leytenant to a major-general; general-polkovnik to a lieutenant-general; and general-armii to a general.
Vehicles
For many years, the principle armoured infantry fighting vehicles have been the BMP (bronyevaya mashina pekhoty) and the BTR (bronyetransportyor). Soviet-built models of these (as well as tanks) were principally what were in the stores. There is also the BMD (bronyevaya mashina desanta), smaller than the BMP and used on the ground by airborne forces.
